Zelenski replies to Trump: “Our position remains unchanged: only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide what the territories of Ukraine are.”

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said on Friday that the Crimea Peninsula belongs to Ukraine and that the position of Kiev has not changed. The reply comes after US President Donald Trump questioned the status of the region annexed by Russia in 2014.

“Our position remains unchanged: only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide what the territories of Ukraine are. The Constitution of Ukraine clearly stipulates that all temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine, the Ukrainian people,” Zelenski said in a press conference in Kiev.

Donald Trump said in an interview published on Friday that the Peninsula “Crimea will remain in Russia.”

“Crimea will stay in Russia. And Zelenski understands this, and everyone understands that it is for a long time. It has been to them long before Trump appeared. Again, this is Obama's war. This is a war that should never take place.

The US president stressed that the Russians “had submarines there long before the period we are talking about, for many years.” “The people of Crimea speak largely Russian,” he added.

Trump made these comments in an interview with Time magazine on Tuesday, in which he also said that the US is close to obtaining a peace agreement in negotiations with Russia and Ukraine.

Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before the large -scale invasion that began in 2022.

However, a peace plan proposed by the US goes further and proposes the official recognition of Russia's control over the peninsula, something with which Kiev and its European allies do not agree.